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successfully established trust with local leaders, local governments, and related stakeholders did mediation start to progress, with both community
Members and company employees coming to the table. A Memorandum of Understanding between the company and the local community was signed
by the logging company and local communities and witnessed by local governments and related authorities following mediation, ending 20 years of
conflict.
While forest conflict can be extremely difficult to manage, finding solutions is important and potentially beneficial to all parties, as illustrated in Table 4.
Table 4. Potential long-term benefits of well managed conflict
Community Company
Government
Clear and secured rights More acceptable and
equitable benefit sharing Ensuring smooth operations
Ensuring stable economic profits Minimizing risks
Avoiding potential loss of investment capital
Maintaining a good corporate image
Ensuring stable tax flow Reducing potential costs
of conflict management Stability
Source: Analyzed from the eight cases.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The underlying causes of forest conflict are often fundamental issues such as contested tenure and overlapping claims, a lack of coordination among state
agencies, and conservation and economic development policies that prioritize global and national interests over local interests, needs, and aspirations. Direct causes of
forest conflict include destruction of assets, loss of income and livelihood opportunities, eviction of local communities from their land, pollution, and few
opportunities for resident populations to benefit from investments.
Community-outsider conflict is managed through various conflict management strategies. Often times, a number of strategies are applied in
addressing a particular conflict. Four common strategies were found to be used in managing conflict over forests: avoidance, coercion, negotiation, and mediation.
Though not a management technique per se, co-management arrangements were successfully used in conjunction with mediation in several instances. The choice of
conflict management strategy was influenced by several factors. One of the main factors was power. When actors are overwhelmingly powerful, it is likely that they
will resort to coercion. In contrast, weak actors such as local communities and indigenous people may have no choice but to avoid overt conflict.
Finally, conflict may have both positive and negative impacts on collective action. On the one hand, it can foster collective action, particularly where local
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institutions are already strong. On the other hand, conflict can also weaken collective action, particularly where local institutions are weak. A number of factors
influence how conflict will interact with collective action. Among others, conflict’s
impact on collective action is determined by the extent to which goals and interests are shared by community members, the extent to which negative impacts are
distributed equally amongst individuals in the collective, and the extent to which addressing the current conflict can effectively set a precedent to deter future
conflict. In turn, the strength of collective action at the community level can help determine the successes and failures of conflict management.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
